"Introduction: The domestic and international obstacles to state-buildi" by Valerie Sperling
 

Political Science

Introduction: The domestic and international obstacles to state-building in Russia

Document Type

Book Chapter

Abstract

Speaking to the Eighth Congress of Soviets on December 23, 1920, in the afterglow of his party’s assumption of power in Russia, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, expressed his enthusiastic vision of the future in terms of an equation: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” 1 Although Soviet power was imposed relatively quickly, and electricity followed in due course, the equation proved false, and communism was never reached. Similarly, after the conclusion of the Cold War, scholars and politicians alike were eager to derive an equally simple formula for creating democracy on the ruins of Soviet autocracy. Although it was never expressed as pithily as Lenin’s, the equation might look like this: “Liberal democracy is the end of Soviet power plus capitalism.” 2 But, a decade later, the political mathematicians had to return to the drawing board. Although Soviet power had collapsed by the close of 1991, the Soviet Union having joined the tsarist empire on the ashheap of history, and although a hybrid capitalism in Russia had spread nearly as far as electrification, the result of the proposed equation proved elusive. Despite its leaders’ declared intentions, the Russian state did not transform itself into a liberal democracy, and quickly developed a reputation for being able to guarantee neither the public welfare and safety of its citizens, nor the rule of law on which liberal democracy is founded.

Publication Title

Building the Russian State: Institutional Crisis and the Quest for Democratic Governance

Publication Date

2018

First Page

1

Last Page

23

ISBN

9780429970504

DOI

10.4324/9780429501951

Keywords

Russia, Soviet Union, state-building

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